


Kurusu Akira, High Priest

by TrashcanGod



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Witches, maybe pre-slash, might add on to this universe eventually idk, the Phantom Thieves are a coven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12205146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashcanGod/pseuds/TrashcanGod
Summary: Akira didn't mean to start a coven when he moved to Tokyo, but now that he has, he's doing his damnedest to be as good a leader as he can be. This includes, but is not limited to, the cleaning up of magical accidents.





	Kurusu Akira, High Priest

At approximately midnight, Akira's phone rings, an obnoxious buzz that intrudes upon the attic's peaceful silence. Though he almost wants to ignore it in favor of drowning in his pillow until sleep reclaims him, he gives in and blearily reaches for his cellphone with a grimace that only slightly lessons at the sight of the same displayed onscreen.

“Ryuji?”

“Heyyy, buddy!” his friend greets with a layer of enthusiasm messily slathered on over poorly disguised nerves. “So, remember that spell you taught me about today?”

Though it doesn't take a clairvoyant to know where this is going, Akira elects to humor him nonetheless. “What about it?”

“Well, I tried it, and it uh... didn't really turn out right...”

Ryuji's voice is so characteristically expressive that the embarrassment and acute shame is carried over even through the phones' many layers of compression. Akira allows for a soft smile; though he isn't the most emotive person and the change in his tone will be minuscule at best, he trusts Ryuji to hear it when he says, “I'll be over tomorrow afternoon.”

His efforts are not in vain, as the guilt diminishes with an audible rush of relief. “Thanks man!” he gushes. “You're a life saver.”

“I know.”

After Akira returns his phone to its rightful place on the windowsill, the cat curled up in his bed sighs.

“Magic problems?” Morgana guesses resignedly, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Yup.”

“Ryuji?”

“Yup.”

Akira's familiar sighs once more, and settles deeper into the bed sheets. “Go back to sleep.”

  
  


As far as covens go, the one led by Kurusu Akira is fairly unique. It's almost entirely made up of beginners, for one, most of whom pretty much stumbled into it by complete accident.

He himself would take the blame for the first instance. Admittedly, he should have been more careful about practicing magic in public, but trying out a spell while fully immersed in the bustling energy that Tokyo exuded was far too tempting to resist. Besides, he'd been in a pretty out-of-the-way alley at the time—and seeing as his carelessness was witnessed by Ryuji, Akira thinks it counted as a win in the end.

What wasn't his fault was Ann, a literal spitfire with a penchant for pyromancy and enough vitriol to make a little revenge hex completely ruin the career of a scumbag volleyball coach. Then came Yusuke, then Makoto, both entirely new to the spark of magic yet inexplicably drawn to Akira and his steadily growing group anyway. (Morgana called him a “magnet for potential”, and it kept getting more and more difficult to deny.)

The only two members of the coven who didn't start out entirely unaware of witchcraft were Futaba, whose mom was a witch and the owner of the magic shop now run by Futaba's adoptive father in her stead; and Haru, who discovered her talent mere days before a late night stroll had her following a “cute little stray” all the way to where the coven was performing a ritual in Inokashira park beneath the full moon.

And so, mere months after moving to the city with no more than a few boxes and his feline familiar, Akira has found himself at the head of a seven-witch-strong coven that meets on the regular in the attic above the aforementioned magic shop (also known as Akira's bedroom).

There are many things that he likes about being the most experienced member of his coven. He enjoys teaching his friends all about the craft so deeply ingrained into his very being; he likes that Morgana has more people he can talk to now, as the only people who can communicate with a familiar are its witch and the witch's coven; and yes, he even likes spending his time cleaning up after various magical mishaps, whether it be a near-house fire during a training session or a miscalculated teleportation spell that resulted in Futaba being stuck on a roof for an hour.

On this particular day, the mishap takes the form of a botched hair-glamour that Akira told Ryuji about when the latter was grumbling about his roots showing. Glamours are tricky, to say the least—casting a spell to slightly alter the perception of every person who looks at you requires some careful magic and a whole lot of willpower.

Ryuji at least has the willpower bit going for him.

His brand of magic, however, is almost the opposite of careful. Ryuji's magic is brute strength, powerful and explosive, throwing full force at whatever target is in front of it. Though this can be advantageous and could produce some fantastic results if handled correctly, the handling is what's the problem—or rather, Ryuji's lack of experience in doing so.

With all that in mind, Akira is not at all surprised when Ryuji's apartment door opens to reveal a head of pure white hair.

“You look like an anime character who's going to die tragically,” Akira deadpans.

“Come on, man...”

Ryuji pouts and locks the door, noticing the lack of a cat in the bag on his friend's shoulder as Akira removes his shoes in the entryway. “Where's Morgana?”

“Hanging out with Futaba,” Akira answers as he follows Ryuji deeper into the apartment. “He said he doesn't want to 'watch me clean up another one of your tragic messes'.”

“Well, I don't wanna hear him shittin' on me for it, so works for me.”

He enters his room with Akira behind him, before turning about-face and pointedly gesturing to where the remains of yesterday's failed spell are spread on the floor. “So? What'd I do wrong this time?”

Akira hums thoughtfully and crouches to assess the evidence. The ingredients in the bowl look right—a mixture of ground herbs with a generous helping of lemon zest—and the two candles placed on either side of it to form a triangle are blue, for perception. A hand-held mirror is in the center, on which a sigil is drawn in dry erase marker. He takes note of every detail, grey eyes peering through black-framed lenses with an intensity known to unsettle any who falls victim to it.

Ah _-hah._

He looks up at Ryuji, whose mouth is twisted nervously. “The sigil needs a few more dampening symbols.”

Ryuji thinks for a moment, before sagging dramatically. “Aw man, for real? I thought glamours had to be powerful!”

“True,” Akira says as he stands from his crouching position with ease, “but it's more important that they're focused, and subtle enough to blend in with people's reality.

“It's a tricky thing to judge,” he assures, placing a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. “Besides, the dampeners are pretty experimental. There isn't a rule book for them.” Akira would know; he came up with them specifically for Ryuji.

“You definitely nailed the manifestation, though,” he points out. Ryuji smiles hesitantly.

“You think so?” At Akira's nod, his expression brightens further, posture returning to a more casual slouch.

Satisfied that Ryuji has been sufficiently cheered, Akira fluidly steps away and turns to sit on the bed. “Alright,” he says as he swings his bag off his shoulder, “let's get to work.”

It isn't exactly a quick process—first, Akira has to walk Ryuji through breaking the original spell (a skill which could come in handy someday, anyway).

“Just visualize the hair color like it's a mask, or a hood, and then,” he makes a fist by his head, then hastily yanks it away, “pull it off.”

“See, you keep saying that,” Ryuji says, frustrated and a bit dejected, “but it's still not happenin'.”

Akira brings a hand to his chin, eyes shifting down toward the bedspread beneath him as he ponders, before looking back up at Ryuji, who sits cross-legged in front of him. “What did you equate the glamour to while you were performing the spell?”

“Uh...” Ryuji shrugs. “Hair dye?”

In the end, it washes out.

To begin on the new glamour, Akira tells Ryuji (whose hair has now returned to its trademark yellow-blonde) to put away all the materials from yesterday, before getting them back out again.

“Why go through the trouble of cleaning up if you're just gonna use it all again right after?” Ryuji questions, brows furrowed and tongue stuck out in concentration, hunched over to carefully redraw the sigil. His hand moves slowly, far steadier than it had been when he first started practicing.

On the bed, Akira is leaning back on his arms as he supervises from above. “It's important to fully end one spell before you use the same materials to start on another,” he explains. “If you subconsciously link the two together, the second spell could get contaminated.”

“Magic Safety 101, huh,” Ryuji mumbles. He sits back with a satisfied huff and places the cap on his marker, before looking up at Akira. “What next, Yoda?”

The corner of Akira's mouth quirks up. “Light the candles, you must.”

“Aw, come on, that was so half-assed,” Ryuji laughs as he flicks on his lighter. “You didn't even do a bad voice with it!”

Akira raises a brow. “How do you know it'd be bad?”

The flame pauses on its way to the second candle. “You know what, I actually wouldn't be surprised if you turned out to be good at that too. Skilled son of a...”

Once the candles are lit and the herbs are well ground, keeping in mind Ryuji's personal perception of the glamour, Akira tells him to add the powder from a bleach kit into the bowl as well.

“We better not be wasting this stuff...” Ryuji worries over the crackle of the foil packet. “Shit's expensive.”

“As long as you maintain your focus, it won't be a waste,” Akira assures him.

The blunt edge of bleach permeates the air, mingling with candle smoke, lemon zest, and the lingering traces of dry erase marker, along with a slowly intensifying scent of sparking ozone as Ryuji holds up the mirror and closes his eyes. Akira watches, the daylight that leaks in through the window shades striping across Ryuji's face, catching on his eyelashes and mixing with the warm glow of candlelight.

That scent of magic, like the earth fresh after rain combined with a crackle of electricity that's distinctly Ryuji, grows until it fills the room and the lungs of anyone in it. Rather than overpower the other smells present, it mixes with them, wraps them up and takes them in to create a scent unique to this particular act.

Akira blinks, and when he next opens his eyes, Ryuji's hair is an evenly-colored pale blonde. As the smell begins to fade, Ryuji cracks an eye open. Then the other eye.

“Holy shit!”

Both eyes are wide now as he admires his hair in the mirror, ignoring the black lines drawn across the reflective surface as he reaches up to part his hair and inspect the roots. “ _Nice,_ ” he whispers giddily, before turning to grin up at Akira. “Dude, you ever thought about opening a magic salon?”

Akira exhales a breath of fond laughter. “Can't say that I have,” he says. “You're the one who cast the spell, though. Your magic that did this, not mine.”

At that, Ryuji blinks, expression open and vulnerable as he processes Akira's words. “Huh.” After a moment, his grin reemerges, cocked to one side, while pride sparks up in brown eyes turned amber by a strip of sunlight. “Guess you're right!”

Akira smiles while the empathetic warmth of a job well done spreads in his stomach. This, this is what makes him love leading his coven—helping his friends clean up their mistakes and showing them where they went wrong, helping them learn about their own magic and how it ticks and flows. And every time one of them manages to overcome a challenge, Akira feels as if he's succeeded, too.

“Good work, Ryuji.”

“Couldn't've done it without you, man.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Life is busy, but I still have time to spit out the occasional oneshot. I've sorta been neglecting writing lately (like I said, life is busy) so I'm a little rusty, but I hope this was enjoyable anyway
> 
> If you enjoyed this, you can visit [my tumblr](inquisitivelizard.tumblr.com), where you'll also find how you can support me


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